Weekly Forecast: January 23-29

A mental storm is subsiding at the beginning of this week, dear readers, though not without some turbulence. We initially find ourselves in the position of the Page of Swords - eager, looking for answers, and kicking up a whole mess of confusion in the process.

You might remember that we ended our last week’s reading with the Four of Swords, a card that denotes a growing awareness arising from a period of rest and reflection. So, in other words, something extremely helpful and even exciting has just come into focus and our first response is to grab it like the shining sword in this card, wave it around, and start thinking even more! Nevermind that our central struggle over the past few weeks has been a result of thinking too much.

It will be important to have the same amount of compassion and kindness we direct towards children available for our tender selves this week; the pages of the youths of tarot, and like this group we’ll be moving forward with some ungainly awkwardness, especially in our thinking. Where have you been eagerly, even aggressively, searching for answers lately? And how helpful has this actually been?

Swords are an intellectual group - they want to understand the events in life in an organized, often linear way. It’s likely that we’ve been approaching some facet of our experience similarly, looking to have a cut-and-dry answer and, like the pages themselves, finding the process a little messy. But perhaps, as this reading suggests, our current situation doesn’t actually need and explanation, it needs an experience; the type of movement that can only happen in our lived, physical lives instead of in the confines of our mind.

The Three of Pentacles shows us being guided to this new focus and, unlike the solitary Page of Swords, we have company. Pay attention to the relationships in your life across the board - where are you being invited to collaborate, share your experience, and build something new? Find your people, reach out and let yourself be surprised by the abundance of inspiration and movement that comes from doing so. This is a beautifully potent time for stepping out of the abstract and conceptual and into the real, embodied, and interpersonal realms of everyday life. We’ll have to try our best to shrug off the burdens of the swords mindset as we make the transition, so be alert to nagging messages of perfectionism. Does a part of you prefer to wait in the wings planning, strategizing, even criticizing potential future actions? These voices are best gently pushed aside this week as we prioritize interactions, collaborations, relationships, and working on things in real time.

What makes this week’s reading particularly promising is a visit from The Empress, our final card, that suggests the stumbling we undergo via the Page of Swords and the collaborations we embark on through the Three of Pentacles are part of a much bigger story. If our thoughts (and, more importantly, tendency to run forward with them without discernment) have been keeping us small, how might our actions and relationships be constructing a new reality at the same time? The Empress tells us that our daily lives - the things we do, the projects and people we commit to - are growing to eclipse the limiting messages of the Page of Swords. Of course, this will also feature some tension. Be kind to yourself as you’re growing and your life grows along with you.

In contrast to The Emperor, The Empress embodies a version of power that’s centered around openness, presence, sensuality, and the cycles of nature. This is not a card that builds tall walls to keep danger out and then puts on a full suit of armor to defend them (though, to be fair, this approach has its time and place). Look to what makes you feel comfortable in life and consider how showing up as yourself and granting yourself the environment to thrive gives you a deeply rooted sense of identity - an inner authority that can’t be taken from you. Investing in these comforts is far from frivolous - what might happen if we relax into our lives, let them nourish us, and act from this position of security?

Potential surprise/reframe:

This is one of those readings I could go on and on about. There’s a beautiful invitation happening in The Empress that each of us will have to accept (or not) in order to explore fully. But I would like to say that this week is a fruitful opportunity to interrogate assumptions and ideas around what you deserve, especially if it’s connected to pleasure. Just look at the splendid muumuu in this card! This person is reclining on luxurious blankets and pillows (I bet they’re velvet) - how can you do the same?

This may instigate some conflict with the Page of Swords, but they’re no match for the gravitas of The Empress. Be alert for self-limiting thoughts, especially related to what you “should” have/be/enjoy/experience, that fall apart as soon as you interrogate them. The silliness of the Page of Swords will be helpful here, and may tie back to ideas we inherited from our childhood that don’t have a place in our adult lives.

Because the true power of The Empress comes from their ability to feel and experience life - it’s sensual pleasures, the reality of being a body moving through a physical world, and all the joy and possibility that comes from it. Cutting off our awareness or even punishing ourselves by limiting our access to creature comforts, moments of beauty, and physical connection of all types does not serve our growth as individuals or as responsible members of the collective.

This week, embrace:

• Tender, even humorous awareness of our attempts to explain away our desires, self, or situation

• Collaboration with others

• Reaching out to our community

• Reciprocity

• Embracing our responsibility to care for ourselves

• Power in enjoying/participating in life

This week, avoid:

• Overanalyzing

• Negative self-talk

• Perfectionism

• Rigid stances towards life - making more rules when you just want to relax

Weekly Forecast: October 3-9

I’ve been thinking about the inherent melancholy of fall a lot lately. Maybe because yearning and pining are some of my favorite activities; there’s something so delicious about the tension between wanting something and not having it, witnessing change and being aware you can’t stop it, the push and pull of loss, growth, and change.

This week the tender, mysterious side of growth is coming into astounding focus. It’s a week where we’re being asked to step outside of the usual daily movement of our lives and consider the bigger picture. In fact, we may find ourselves pulled there against our will. The Hanged Man is a card that speaks to moments when we are, as the card illustrates, hamstrung in some capacity. Sometimes it’s of our own choosing, but usually it comes with a heavy emphasis on circumstance. Where do you feel stymied, stuck, and like you’re being forced to wait? Fortunately, The Hanged Man tells us that this is actually quite the blessing, and even carries within it the seeds for a spiritual breakthrough, but that doesn’t lessen the difficulty of finding yourself in this card’s position.

An attitude adjustment, however, is surprisingly powerful. Think now about how you can make the situation of waiting, indecision, or sacrifice enjoyable. If you have the time, why not savor it?

This reminds me of an inside joke I share with my sister about how, when we were bored as kids, our mom would spout off a litany of potential activities that we absolutely did not want to do. “You could… go for a walk, do a puzzle, write a letter…” We’d roll our eyes dramatically, incensed and annoyed, as if doing something so lame would be worse than being bored itself. To this day, we’ll start listing these activities at each other when we find ourselves languishing or without a plan.

What’s funniest about this, to me, is that it suggests an inner mechanism for embracing boredom. It may not be elegant - I certainly rebel against it in utterly ridiculous ways - but I think it’s there for a reason. Important information, whether it’s from our subconscious or a higher source, needs space in which it can reveal itself. Silence, too. As well as a certain state of receptivity. Can we only receive certain information when we’re bored, blank, and, therefore, open to something surprising and new? Maybe so.

Make room for this type of inner sassiness this week as well as space for nothingness. What does boredom have to teach you? Where are you feeling restless? And how can you push beyond this resistance and gift yourself space of blankness, emptiness, and absence?

We may find ourselves feeling more dreamy in general - looking to imagined futures, playing with ideas that feel blurry and hard to pin down, and these will be fruitful to explore. The Hanged Man is about a slippery type of initiation, one that has us feeling both out of control and confused. It’s not glamorous. It’s not exciting. And, often, we’re the only ones able to discern the important message being offered.

The Eight of Cups hones in on the specific nature of our revelations, with its solitary figure making a moonlit journey into a mountain pass, leaving a whole row of upturned cups behind. This week is asking us to embrace a subtle form of bravery and walk away from conventional paths. It’s likely that there’s a part of your life that’s requiring you to take a risk, to go off on your own just because you know it’s the right thing to do.

Look at the bright red shoes and cape on the main character in this card. The color of passion, red shows us being driven by something visceral and essential. And we’re walking away from something that’s “good enough,” all the cups in perfect order, standing up. But one is missing, and we can’t really be certain that they’re all full to begin with.

Consider where you’re feeling an absence, emptiness, or sense of potential. If it feels tender and raw, pay even more attention. The Eight of Cups is about risk, and true to its group, touches on themes of emotion, spirituality, intuition, and deeper meaning. The journey is starting from a sense of restless (but almost coy and enigmatic) discomfort in The Hanged Man, requiring us to take the first steps in the Eight of Cups… and then breaking through to the powerful satisfaction of The Empress.

In many ways, our reading is showing a bridge between two Major Arcana cards. This is wonderful because a) sometimes The Hanged Man can point out very long-term scenarios. Not the case here! (Phew) and b) it gives us a very helpful, actionable path forwards via the Eight of Cups. So, to be very simple: allow the passion revealed in a moment of boredom to inspire your first steps towards a sense of abundant fulfillment.

The Empress is a card that’s all about embodied pleasure. This can be romantic as well as personal - how we inhabit our bodies, celebrate the abundance of the natural world around us, and care for what’s important. With a combination of luck and effort, we’re emerging into this space at the end of the week. Find ways to give thanks for the beauty in your life, amplify, it and share it with others. The boredom isn’t lasting long, breakthroughs are on the horizon, and the afterglow will be spectacular.

This week. embrace:

• Waiting

• Leaving space for emptiness, boredom, not-knowing

• Taking a step back to rest and let things percolate

• Moving towards a brave new future

• Prioritizing passion, emotional fulfillment, deeper meaning

• Embodying, celebrating, and sharing beauty and abundance

This week, avoid:

• Over-analyzing what you want

• Filling your time mindlessly

• Challenging energy or input from other people

Get creative:

• The Hanged Man: The word I keep hearing when I look at this card is “percolation,” and I’d like to use that metaphor to connect this card to the Eight of Cups: the red in the hanged man’s legs needs to percolate into the cape and shoes of the eight of cups. To bring this down to earth - how can you use time and stillness to transform the energy of something you’ve been experiencing recently into something you can use? The first step is awareness: meditate or journal about something you’re already doing that brings you a feeling of contentment and satisfaction that’s otherwise missing in your life. Once identified, imagine how you could expand its presence.

• The Eight of Cups: I’m feeling a need to edit here; that we have to peek into our wall of cups and see what’s been happening after all this time. Maybe some have evaporated entirely while others have grown stagnant. What’s no longer filling you up? How can you give yourself permission to walk away from it? Be ready to see some surprising, even uncomfortable things. I also feel like a ritualized libation (wow, is that phrase satisfying to type) is in order - craft yourself a beverage that feels new, exciting, and somehow symbolic of what you want to invite into your life. Fill your cup with it daily, envisioning its energy both sustaining you and diffusing itself into every corner of your experience.

• The Empress: If you’ve been looking for an invitation to get decadent, this is it! But I’m also feeling drawn to the environmental aspect of this card as well; find a time to tend to your space, whether it’s putting your garden to bed for the season, repotting your houseplants, or picking up at the local park. Perhaps follow this activity with a sweet treat, honoring both the responsibility we have to enjoy and care for the sources of pleasure in our lives.

We're All Creative Creatures

“I’m just not a very creative person…”

How many times have I heard this phrase, both inside and outside of my tarot studio? It seems that most of us have a strictly “paintbrushes and poems” vision of the creative process. If we’re not engaged in the arts of music, painting, photography, etc. well, we’re just not creative.

I have a major bone to pick with this idea. Most of the people I meet have already made several creative decisions before they make it to my office. Maybe they took a new route on their way over or found an innovative solution to an argument with their partner from that morning. Maybe they tried a never-before-seen combinations of toppings at the salad bar! What I’m saying here is that creativity can be so interwoven with the mundane that we’re not even aware of it.

Take a look at tarot, for example. The Minor Arcana consists of four suits: wands, cups, swords, and pentacles. We embody all four of the suits as we move through life and the wands are most commonly associated with creativity. In the broadest sense they mean motion and putting ideas into action. In other words, simply moving through the world requires it. Many of the things we do have never been done before. They started as ideas and we bring them into being through our actions. It’s all part of being human.

Reclaiming our creative identity is massively healing. Behind all the statements of “I’m just not creative” is a secret longing. Simply be reframing our experience to include creativity in our everyday existence we open up further avenues for expression. That could lead to picking up watercolors as a hobby or just gaining the confidence of seeing ourselves as an integrated person, one whose creativity isn’t limited to the arts or our output.

Tarot Card for Creativity

• The Suit of Wands

• The Magician

• The Fool

• The Sun

• The Empress

• The World

• Three of Pentacles

• Seven of Cups

Creativity can look like…

• Problem-solving

• New projects

• Taking initiative at work, home, etc.

• Communicating ideas

• Organizing

• Decorating

• Artistic pursuits

• Planning

Tarot Cards for Summer

Ah, Summer. What a langorous and wonderful season. School's out, work slows down, and people take their vacations. It's a time for enjoying life: delicious food, the joys of swimming, and happy time spent with friends and family.

So where does Summer show up in the tarot? According to most tarotists, the suit most assocaited with Summer is the cups. What's more summery than water and the loving, sensual feelings it carries with it? 

Summer also brings to mind relaxation, growth, connection, and unfurling. Below are some cards that I associate with this season. Look to these to gain a sense of time or to indicate these themes in your readings.

Ace of Cups

This card shows the effusion of good feelings that come with Summer. Think of the excitement of the last day of school and the openness of free time. Aces are beginnings and influxes of energy, so here we can see the refreshing feeling of Summer arriving on the scene. It's that beginning of the vacation feeling, a new romance, and the warmth that comes with spending quality time with others. When aces appear we can also be sure that a new adventure is about to begin. Here, it's through connection, love, and romance. Summer has a way of stripping us of inhibitions and this card sees us showing up fresh, available, and ready to connect.

The Hanged Man

This context taps into the "just chillin'" side of The Hanged Man. Here we can see relaxation, detaching from worry, and leaning into a state of ease. Much like we're able to unwind when the days get longer, we're less busy at work, and - of course - away from everyday life and on a vacation. This card also shows us that relaxation is an important ingredient to self-discovery. When we let our minds wander and give up on controlling things we also give other pieces of information and insight time to percolate and develop. And we leave space for people to seek us out and enjoy our undistracted presence.

Nine of Pentacles

This card screams "garden party" to me, and indeed the Nine of Pentacles is the embodiment of hospitality. The garden she's cultivated is beautiful and open to whomever would like to stop by. This card shows us how generosity and sharing joy with others is an essential ingredient to success. Taking time to enjoy what's beautiful, pleasurable, and satisfying is an important part of life we can often overlook, foolishly thinking it's not important. Better yet, doing this with others builds community on good times and good will and has lasting effects we may not be aware of in the moment.

The Empress

The Empress is a card for late summer when the time has come to harvest what's ripe on the vine before the chill of fall arrives. She emulates the strength of preparation, respect and love for nature, and the abundance of knowing oneself. Of course, there are themes of fertility here as well. Think of this card when communing with nature, caring for your family, and pursuing pleasure for pleasure's sake. This card refers to the time when we celebrate the bounty of summer and start transitioning into fall and winter. 

What about you? What tarot cards do you find full of Spring energy? Share in the comments below.

Tarot and the Erotic: Sexuality in the Cards

Tarot can sometimes seem like a chaste affair, especially in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck where the nude figures are either presented as archetypes (The Lovers) or in solitary introspection (The Star). 

A quick look at other decks like the deliciously cheeky and bawdy Eros Tarot by Uusi or the wonderfully sex-positive and diverse Slutist Tarot shows us that sex does have a presence in the cards after all. Yes, things can get spicy when you're reading tarot!

As it should! Sexuality is intrinsic to our humanity, whether we choose to express that energy physically or not.

It's also important to acknowledge that tarot, especially the Rider-Waite-Smith system that I'll be working with in this post, has a visually white and heteronormative focus. Looking at the cards as archetypal energies and not literal or limiting representations of human expression is helpful in navigating these shortcomings.

For example, the phallic symbolism on the Ace of Wands doesn't exclusively apply to phallus-havers or lovers. Rather, we can look at it as a representation of a certain type of sexual energy, one we can all feel and express. The cards are simply markers on a larger spectrum we use to illustrate more complicated truths. 

For beautiful and vibrant decks that show the wide range of shapes, orientations, and forms of humanity and not Medieval figures, check out the decks above the Dust II Onyx Tarot and Slow Holler Tarot ... hmm... I think I might just have to turn this into another deck recomendation post - stay tuned!

Below are some of my favorite cards that speak to spicy times of all stripes:

Tarot Cards that Signify Sex

The Empress

Just looking at this card gives us an insight into its sexual meaning. Here is a woman who is clearly feeling herself. The grounded confidence of The Empress represents a deep-seated undertsanding of one's body as the root of their sexuality. Pleasure is wild, free, and undeniably hers. This card can reflect self-pleasuring, sexual generosity with healthy boundaries, and valuing pleasure for pleasure's sake.

The Devil

Well, well! This card certainly looks naughty. The Devil shows us how it sometimes feels good to be bad. Doing this in a healthy, consensual manner can be toe-curlingly delicious. We can use The Devil's energy to explore parts of ourselves through our sexuality that get short shrift in everyday life. However, we can often seek out unhealthy relationships to get this thrill, unfortunately to our own detriment.

The Seven of Swords

This card is more than a little naughty. Jauntily sneaking off with more swords than you can carry reflects the thrill of having a secret - a hidden kink, new relationship, or even affair. Be sure to stop and consider if this secret is benign or whether it's hurtful to others. Sometimes the temporary pleasure isn't worth it.

The Magician

A card of vibrant sexual agency, The Magician shows us moments where we take things into our own hands (wink wink) and pursue our passions. Seeking out what attracts us and taking the risk of approaching it is a valuable and confidence-building exercise. How else would The Magician have gained his experience? Look to this card for sexual invigoration and inspiration and the confidence to let things unfold naturally.

The Sun

This card can represent the unbridled orgasmic joy of sex. Vulnerability, when expressed in a safe relationship or relationships, allows us to show up as purely ourselves. When we do this sexually, the energetic channel is astounding and something to be savored (hopefully many, many times!)

The Ace of Wands

This card is a) a phallic symbol sprouting leaves and b) a representation of an influx of sexual energy. It's the electricity in the air when you're around your crush, the general creative feeling you get at the beginning of a new project. This sexual feeling can be amorphous and channeled into many aspects of our lives. Sexually speaking, it's an encouraging sign to get creative and involved with our sexual expression.

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Weekly Forecast: July 10-17

The full moon in Capricorn seems to have awakened some barely concealed energy. Why do I say barely? We have both the Empress and the King of Wands showing up in the first two positions of our spread. These two cards arrive on the scene completely connected to their own power, talent, and vision. 

To put it simply, this is a week where sensuality and action come together seamlessly.

At the root of all the comings and goings is a deep connection to ourselves. The Empress isn't a card wrapped up in the conceptual. She lives and breathes in the reality of lived-in, daily life. 

The way the Empress sees things, this is the most magical space to inhabit. To her, reality as we experience it contains all the inspiration and sacred energy we need. The realm of the senses - what we can touch, see, smell,  taste, and hear - is the direct expression of something greater.

This is a time to revel in our perceptions and experiences of the world. We're being urged to pay attention to how we feel, more particularly, how our bodies feel as we interact with what's around us. 

It's a delicious, stop-and-smell-the-roses attitude towards life. No moment is too small or too fleeting - the feel of the sun on our faces, the ground beneath our feet, or the sound of a bird flying by. We can find joy around us at all times and in abundance.

This foundation of awareness will grant us a wealth of self-confidence and stability. Framing our experience in our bodies - we're at the center of everything we encounter - allows us to bypass the at times anxious and stifling filter of our thoughts. 

This week we're being asked to engage with the feeling of knowing rather than the thought of knowing what's right. Listening to our instincts, following the feeling in our stomachs, hearts, feet will bring us to new and exciting places.

So now that we're really feeling ourselves where are we headed? Fostering self connection and paying attention to the joys of being alive is propelling us towards the King of Wands, a proactive, powerful, and dynamic card.

When we feel at one with ourselves and the world we are able to leap forward and embrace actions that reflect innate truths about ourselves. We're going to have no shortage of energy this week, nor inspiration. I like to think of these two cards as a representation of the marriage between our wild and natural self and our creative self.

Think (and feel) about what is an important next step. What's calling to you that you'd like to leap into wholeheartedly? This is not a time for doubt or trepidation. We've got this. 

Excitingly enough, it looks like we're not going to be pursuing these dreams alone. The Two of Cups shows the beginning of an important union. Someone is coming onto the scene after being attracted by our vim and vigor. 

This partnership will be formed around the creative leaps and bounds we're taking and, in addition to being inspiring will also have a lovely and tender side: mutual support in the birth of a new venture.

And what a beautiful progression of images: the lush growth in The Empress moving towards the sun-like rays of inspiration in the King of Wands. All leading to the celestial expansion and companionship of the Two of Cups. We're going to be exentding all the way from the ground to the heavens, looking at a beautiful starry sky of possibility. 

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Weekly Forecast: February 13-19

Tarot Cards by Kazumi Niikura

What do we do with our feelings? Do we let our tenderness shine at full force or express ourselves more cautiously?

This is an interesting question to bring into a week that’s been overstuffed with meaning. The biggest presence, of course, is Valentine’s day. Who could miss the piles of heart shaped candies that have been in the grocery store since January? (I, for one, am more excited for the candy sales the day after Valentine’s.)

Regardless of your feelings about the holiday (cynical corporate commodification? Romantic bonanza? A bit of both?) the cards we’ve pulled for this week are quite lovey. Whether you’re feeling it in a sexy and spicy way or a platonic one, love and how we express it is on our minds.

So how do we honor this? What about our plans? Whether you’re single our coupled, there’s a pull to commemorate your relationships. A ladies’ night out? Treating yourself to some chocolates and a bubble bath? Some schmancy candlelit supper with your partner?

I’ve been rushing around feeling February gain momentum and now look where we are. Just a day away from Valentine’s and I have no plans. What I do have is a growing sense of urgency and several options I’m convinced I have to pursue. Valentine’s for all my friends. A romantic dinner. AND a decadent self-care ritual.

Funny thing is, I haven’t really sat down to think about it all. Do I really want to be doing all these things, cramming them into my already busy schedule? What’s important to me right now?

The cards for this week tell us to take some time to reconnect with ourselves. They also show us struggling between outer expectations and inner desires. Getting stuck between the two can lead to inaction, which would be a shame seeing as we’re feeling very sentimental and effusive. There’s no better time to be writing Valentine’s and professing love than when you’re feeling it.

Now is a good time to consider who we want to express our love to and how we’d like to do it. There’s no time to get stuck in prepackaged ideas about what love “should” look like. This is all about you.

The King of Cups is a somewhat conflicted card. As the ruler of emotions, he must maintain distance. Emotions are notoriously slippery things. They shift constantly and are hard to pin down. Their ephemeral nature is what makes them so enticing and powerful. We can’t force ourselves to feel a certain way, though we can train ourselves to observe our feelings from afar.

The King of Cups has mastered this skill. He is able to separate himself from his emotions and those of others. Just look at him peering at the cup in his hand rather clinically. This can be helpful during times of conflict or when you’re engaging with healing work, but holding one’s own emotions at arm’s length is also stifling. We need to feel things directly in order to fully experience both the joys and pain of life. We can’t always be king.

The Empress shows us another way of being. She’s been a guardian angel of sorts lately, popping up in the past few weekly forecasts. Clearly her teaching is not finished, and thankfully so, because her approach is decidedly much more romantic and rejuvenating.

This is a card that unabashedly revels in sensuality. Rather than draining her and making her weak, displays of joy and affection renew her strength. She is able to both experience her feelings and communicate them. With her powerful boundaries, she is able to block out any negativity without blocking out her own experience of life.

How does she do this? By remaining utterly inside herself. Not locked away or removed, but present. Just look at her cradling a juicy pomegranate, a symbol of abundance. She embodies her feelings instead of removing herself from them like the King holding his cup at a distance.

This is a week to consider what acts of love make you feel like The Empress: solid in yourself, warm, and loving. Perhaps you need a bit of the King of Cups’ remove to figure out what works best for you before you jump into action. Once that’s done, however, jump on in. Now is not a time to limit your expression. When you feel it, you feel it, so let the world know. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s joyous and brings you strength while communicating your love to others.

And the rest of it? Leave it by the wayside. Fancy dinners don’t hold a candle to your own authentic feelings.

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Weekly Forecast: Jan 23-29

Cards from the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot

Well, would you look at all these people in this reading!

This is a time where we’re feeling a shift in our roles, a change from one way of being that we’re very comfortable in to a wobbly yet exciting new approach. We’ve been feeling very in control and powerful – and for good reason – yet this week sees a need for innovation that may have us feeling like we’re learning to ride a bike for the first time. There will be unsteadiness and uncertainty, but we’re expanding our reach and learning important new tools.

We're moving from a realm of decisive thinking to the much messier (and sensual) realm of doing. When it comes to thinking we have the upper hand. In our minds, we can control all the factors, experiment with ideas, and mull it all over to find the best possible solution. This is important. Were we to rush ahead blindly things could fall apart quickly. It helps to draw a map before you set out on a journey.

The King of Swords reflects this feeling of competency. We’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. The sharp, piercing kind that cuts holes in bad ideas and stale ways of thinking, making a path to move into something new. Something that works far better than what we have now.

We’ve become quite masterful at this, and yes, it is good to acknowledge talents and successes. Like a sharp-eyed falcon hovering over the world, we’ve seen a lot and have a much better perspective of the bigger picture than those scurrying around on the ground. For things to change, however, we have to get down there, too. Now is a time to turn our thoughts into action and jump into the fray, taking our keen observations with us. It’s time to step through into another way of doing things. That is, by actually doing them. 

But things look much different on the ground. It may be a little chaotic, and the steely remove we can have in our minds quickly gives way to a rush of sensations and stimuli. In the Page of Pentacles we find ourselves grappling with this new reality. At the same time, this is a splendid opportunity, and one I have a feeling most of us are more than ready for. We get to do things now – feeling, experimenting, and experiencing all that is around us.

If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed and deflated in this new role, remember it’s supposed to be a little awkward. We’re living in the real world and in real time. We’re learning. Perfection is not the goal here, simply dedication, diligence, and a nice pinch of joy and fascination.

Become engrossed in the tasks at hand and know that at a certain level, we’ll always be a beginner like the Page of Pentacles. This can be many things: beautiful, enriching, frustrating, and confusing. Above all, it’s hopeful. We can always change, adapt, and learn new things. Quite useful in a world that’s constantly changing, don’t you think?

The Empress drives home the underlying theme of earthiness and involvement present in this week. I see her as the most grounded card in Tarot: sitting on her throne she is the ruler of the physical world – of nature, sensuality, and all the experiences that make us alive – because she is inextricably a part of it. The Empress reminds us that the experiments (and sometimes fumblings) of the Page of Pentacles are bringing us to a world where we embody the change we want to see. 

So this week consider what you want and then go out and do something to create it. This can be small, like craving a certain something delicious and cooking it for yourself. It can be large, like committing to a cause that you want to support. Better yet, bring this energy to many parts of your life. The way of the Empress is to treat all these manifestations with respect. We’re not able to embody this attitude in everything we do, but we’re thankfully in the scrappy place of the Page of Pentacles – ready and willing to get our hands dirty and try new things. 

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Tarot for Self-Care: The Empress

Explore Self-Care through Tarot. Every Wednesday I’ll be drawing one card and reflecting on what it tells us about how to take care of ourselves in this busy world. Look forward to tarot spreads, recipes, rituals, and more.

The Empress is an unabashedly sensual card. She sits on a comfortable throne, staring out at us with a relaxed confidence. Surrounded by natural splendor – lush trees, a cascading river, and bountiful grains – she rules fertility and abundance. Her realm is not the above and beyond, it is the here and now. The delights of the physical and the magic all around us.

This card invites us to connect to our senses and ourselves. To revel in the moment and celebrate our connection to the physical world.

This week I certainly needed to embrace the energy of the Empress. I was running around, feeling disconnected from myself, and wrapped up in the constant buzz in my mind. When I saw this card it didn't take long to figure out how to channel more of the Empress.

I’ve always loved making concoctions. When I was young I used to make potions out of whatever I could find in the kitchen, plus green food coloring (because I thought it looked cool, of course). Later, I started making natural body products and even started a business selling them. I still love the process of combining the various ingredients, getting inspired by the smells and textures of herbs and oils.

What better way to channel The Empress’ connection to nature and the realm of the senses?

This week I’m sharing a bath soak recipe I made with the Empress in mind. I used buttermilk powder for its skin softening powers as well as a symbol of the Empress’ connection to motherhood. The oats are taken from the grains depicted on the card and I used hibiscus to represent the red of the pomegranates on her robe. And because it makes your bathwater pink, so how could I resist?

 I found the act of making the soak just as enjoyable as the actual soaking - very in-line with the Empress way of thinking. Feel free to substitute herbs to your liking. The only requirement is you smell, touch, and relax throughout the process. 

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Empress Bath Soak

Materials

Spice Grinder

Small Bowl

Jar 

Ingredients

¼ cup buttermilk powder

¼ cup ground oats

¼ cup Epsom salts

4 tbsp pink salt (or any other coarse salt)

2 tbsp dried lavender flowers

5-7 dried hibiscus flowers

10 drops essential oil(s) of your choice

(I used 5 drops sandalwood and 5 drops rose)

Instructions

1.      Mix buttermilk powder, ground oats, and Epsom salts in a small bowl.

2.      Place pink salt, lavender flowers, and hibiscus flowers in spice grinder. Grind until powdery and uniform in texture.

3.      Add to bowl and mix to combine.

4.      Add essential oils, stirring to incorporate.

5.      Pour into jar and you’re done!

6.      To bathe: Add 3-5 tablespoons to bathwater and soak your troubles away.